Archive for the ‘Middlesex’ Tag

“Fending for ourselves,” for supper happens when our schedules aren’t going to overlap well enough to justify cooking for two. Jackie usually eats better than me on ‘fend’ nights but we both eat relatively shittily compared to when I cook. Friday, I chose a döner meat with chips from Hillingdon’s Best Kebab eaten al fresco near the Oxford Tube stop (toward Oxford) in Hillingdon.

It was alright and the ‘small’ was too much for a mortal to finish (with medium and large options on the card). Knowing that a funeral parlour stands nearby gave me the will to try, though.

Walking to the bus from the Co-Op with some still warm bread, I found myself before the Centre of Hope (which, after all the head injuries I have had in nearly 6 decades, is hardly surprising).

The overarching Hope would be to be told to turn right as you exit, for that way lies someone in Glamorise that might do something with your post-brain-surgery mop of hair. To be sent left (your right, as you face the shops), is to be directed to Adell’s Chemist/Clinic next door or, worse, what lies two doors down.

We’re all eventually going two doors to the left, but I think we’d all prefer to look pretty for a while longer.

Glossing over my reasons for being on campus, the mere fact that Brunel UniversityHAS a campus (even an extremely small and modern one) made me long for something besides Oxford or Cambridge. It lives up to the “Plate Glass University” category but that plate glass looks out on green neighbourhoods surrounding it. It got its start as a Technical College and eventually got a Royal Charter as a University in 1966 (so, I’m about the same age as the Brunel College of Advanced Technology that preceded this version). Finished with my visit, I decided to walk home and sought out pre-stroll fortification in the Student Union.

The bar there is called Loco’s and they were packed with right-around-19-to-21-year-olds, enjoying Friday evening with £1.50 pints. It is a bit loud and very young, but the cricket was on a projector screen and some Ought-ies music videos playing on the tele: stuff their parents listened to while conceiving these engineers (and whatever else is taught here). The bar food looks like what you might imagine: tempting with the cheap beer, but not to make a meal out of.

Cool, I guess. Nerd University cool, not party school cool but I’ve got degrees from both types. While in school, it seemed like any bar would do and it was only years later I even began to notice how they reflect a targeted demographic within their host institutions. Guess I’m just slow.

Added Saturday morning regarding the Visa payments crash: So, I got to the bar and was told the transaction had to be “cash only.” Fine, I had two rounds in coins at £1.50 a pop and really only planned to stay for one. I asked if the interwebs were down but the bargirl said it was just the card reader. I didn’t think about it again and headed home after my short stay in the nursery.

On the way, I stopped at Waitrose in Ruislip and got some fixings for a fish pie and picked up a nice bottle of wine and, as they were on sale, a bottle each of bourbon and better-quality-than-normal gin. Everything rang up at about 50 quid and I put in my card to pay only for it to be rejected. “Is that Visa?” asked the cashier. I said yes and a floor walker appeared and took me, the unpaid receipt, and my packed shopping to the front desk where the chaos I now noticed at the tills was distilled into a concentrated form.

“Do you have another card type?” one of the beleaguered staff asked while waving a card reader at me. I told them “no” and asked if the cash machine was affected.
“It works, but this has been going on all afternoon and it is out of cash.” She then looked at the packed bag, me, the receipt, and me again then whispered, “oh, just go with your groceries.”
“Are you sure?”
“Just be quiet about it,” and she handed me the receipt. I wish I had bought more stuff, now.

Zipping downhill toward Preston Road Station and on to Wembley, I spotted the Fléadh off to my left and decided to take a beer break. Once they recovered from the shock of a stranger appearing at the bar, sweaty and American and all, the group under the Indian Premier League match went back to loudly explaining things they didn’t understand to one another. This was beautiful to behold and I wish I had taken notes for specific details.

There was order, in a sense, but it seemed to me that one of the gents would give very questionable details on a given topic and then be met with a counter argument on a completely unrelated subject. By the time the talking stick (I didn’t see one but it would help explain the protocols in place) returned to the first person in this description he would be on a completely different subject.

The TV I was under had on some clay court tennis with exceedingly attractive Soviet women batting the ball to one another…sweating and making borderline obscene noises with each volley. One of the Algonquin Roundtable came over and stared at this for an uncomfortably long time considering his tackle was closer to my head than my beer was. Careful not to speak lest I get sucked into their realm — the world of the Clavins — I just nodded and tipped my beer his way when he grunted in my direction. I had places to go and things to do, though, and soon moved on my way.

The documentation photo (above) of the empty tray is not so much a testament to how good the kebab from Kenton Kebab House was but that I was so hungry that I wolfed down the rapidly freezing grease pie before I remembered to fire the shutter. It was okay, mind, but only for ballast on a Sunday afternoon between trains when there were rough gastric seas made up of four pints from a four mile run and not any more palatable options to hand.

Ran to Harrow to pick up some USD at a travel money pitch, then opted to enjoy the drizzle whilst hardening my arteries before heading home. Kebabland, near the station, did the honours and, despite the industrially produced chips, it was a pretty good batch. Decent chilli sauce comes from a stock pot on the stove not a squirt bottle. Yum.

Jackie had to do some shite in Uxbridge ahead of an emergency trip to the States and I went along to try to keep her focused (it has been a rough several weeks for the little lady). Once she was down to too-few-errands-to-need-me, I ran off to the canal path for a bit of fresh air and exercise. The wind and rain were bracing even though the run was only a few miles to Harefield where I would eventually catch the bus home. Checking my sodden map as I emerged there from a neighbourhood side street, I spotted my bus stop straightaway and, just to the left, a pub!

Inside the Harefield I found several fine choices on the pumps and got something — like myself — alcoholic, bitter, and a bit oilier than you might expect. I moved to the fire and one fine fellow made extra room as I propped my saturated shoes on the grate.

“Is that your chef there?” asked one of the blokes at the bar indicating a guy in cook’s kit standing in the rain outside.

“No, I think he just wandered up,” said the bartender after carefully studying the guy. Door-to-door chefs … strange times, indeed.

I spotted the 331 bus making the turn a few hundred meters away and emptied the rest of my glass. “You keep a damn fine bus shelter, here, sir,” I said as I returned my glass. He thanked me and the rest wished me well as I sloshed out into the rain again.